to disallow the measure. Nevertheless, the despatch of the governor, Sir William des Voeux, to the colonial secretary, Sir H. Holland, was so entirely in favour of the principle of the bill that the Newfoundland authorities became imbued with a fixed determination to urge forward the measure for imperial acceptance. In 1887, therefore, a delegation, consisting of Sir Robert Thorburn, the premier, and Sir Ambrose Shea, visited England at a moment most propitious for obtaining the sympathy and support of the imperial government and the press and people of the mother country, it being the jubilee year of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne. A conference of colonial premiers was one of the notable events distinguishing that happy period, and the subject was argued before the conference at considerable length. The claim set up by the senior colony “to control and legislate for her own fisheries” met with general approval, the single dissentient being the representative of Canada, who feared that Canadian fishermen would suffer under the bill. When an assurance was tendered that Canada’s fishermen would be placed upon the same footing with those of Newfoundland, the British government somewhat reluctantly sanctioned the Bait Act. The stipulation was made, however, that it should not be enforced until the spring following (1888). In the meantime the chagrin of the French Foreign Office at the failure of the Ford-Pennell negotiations, and the hostile attitude taken up by the Newfoundlanders in what they deemed to be the conservation of their interests, induced M. de Freycinet to devise retaliatory measures. Instructions were issued “to seize and confiscate all instruments of fishing belonging to foreigners resident or otherwise, who shall fish on that part of the coast which is reserved to our use.” Lord Rosebery, then foreign secretary, protested to the French ambassador against the spirit of these instructions, which he insisted were in direct contravention of the treaty, inasmuch as they ignored the concurrent as well as those sovereign rights of Great Britain which France solemnly undertook by the treaties never to question or dispute. Nor were other opportunities soon wanting to the French to retort severely upon the Newfoundland authorities for their passage of the Bait Act, as well as to repair in large measure the injury which that act promised to inflict upon the French industry. 'About 1874 a Nova Scotian named Rumkey had established the first factory for the canning of lobsters on the west coast. This concern proved profitable, and others sprang up, until, at the close of the season of 1887, Captain Campbell, R.N., reported that twenty-six factories were at work, employing about 1100 hands. It was at that time understood that this was an industry which, by the very nature of the process and the permanent shore structure it involved, the French were disqualified from pursuing. So clearly was this recognized that in 1886, when Commander Browne of H.M.S. “Mallard” reported the existence of a French lobster factory at Port-aux-Choix, a substantially-built structure, roofed with corrugated iron, the French authorities conceded that the establishment was in violation of the treaties, and issued orders for its removal. But this conciliatory policy was of brief duration. The year of the Bait Act’s first successful application was marked by the stoppage, by order of the French government, of Messrs Murphy and Andrew’s lobster factory, and by their contention that the lobster-canning industry formed a part of the privileges conceded under the treaties to the French, whose participation by the British fishermen would be forcibly resisted.
An exchange of notes took place between Lord. Salisbury and M. Waddington, the French ambassador, in which the latter expressed an opinion which evoked a spirited protest on the part of the British Foreign Office. “France,” it was then declared, “preserved the exclusive right of fishing she always possessed. This right of France to the coast of Newfoundland reserved to her fishermen is only a part of her ancient sovereignty over the island which she retained in ceding the soil to England, and which she has never weakened or alienated.” This claim of the French to an exclusive fishery was held to be wholly untenable, and their classification of the lobster catching and canning industry as amongst the “fishing” privileges granted them by the treaty was denounced as contrary to both letter and spirit of that instrument. Notwithstanding this, the French agents on the treaty shore clamoured for the removal of several of the British factories, which (it was declared) interfered with the exclusive fishing rights of the French. The French government also voted (1888) a special bounty for the establishment of lobster factories by their subjects on the treaty coast. Pending a settlement, the British foreign office deemed it expedient, in order not to give offence to France, to invest the French claims with a semblance of right by issuing instructions to British naval officers on the North American station to continue to interpret and enforce the treaties with regard to the Newfoundland lobster-canning industry on the same terms as they had done hitherto with regard to the cod-fishery. Acting under a statute passed in the reign of George III., empowering British naval officers to interpret and enforce the treaties, Sir Baldwin Walker and others proceeded to destroy or remove a number of British factories at the request of the French agents. In 1890 the unexpected discovery was made that the act empowering British naval officers to enforce the provisions of the treaties with France had expired in 1832 and had never been renewed. Consequently all the proceedings of which the colonists had been the victims were illegal. One of them, Mr James Baird, immediately took proceedings against Sir Baldwin Walker in the supreme court, which decided in his favour, mulcting the admiral in £1000.
On an appeal to the privy council the decision was upheld. But before this incident had taken place, the controversy between London and Paris culminated in the modus vivendi of 1890, by which the lobster factories, both British and French, which were in existence on the 1st of July 1889, were to continue for the present. Modus vivendi 1890. Instantly the colony took alarm, and a deputation consisting of the island’s leading men was sent to England to protest against both the principle and practice of such an arrangement. On their return they learnt that it was the intention of the imperial government to re-enact verbatim et literatim the act for the enforcement of the treaties which had expired fifty-nine years previously. To prevent such an occurrence, delegates from both parties in Newfoundland visited London in April 1891, and, appearing at the bar of the House of Lords, promised that if the measure which was then on the eve of being introduced into that body were withdrawn, a temporary measure would be passed by the Newfoundland legislature which would answer the same purpose of enabling Great Britain to carry out her treaty obligations with France. The hope then generally entertained was that the whole question of French rights in the colony would soon be the subject of definite negotiations looking to their total extinguishment. That hope was, however, not speedily realized. For a number of years the Modus Vivendi Act was annually passed by the legislature, each year under protest, the conviction gaining strength in the colony that the imperial government was averse from renewing negotiations with France.
In 1898 the secretary of state, Mr Chamberlain, yielding to the urgent request of the senior colony, despatched a commission consisting of Sir J. Bramston and Sir James Erskine, with Lord Westmeath as secretary, on a tour of investigation along the treaty shore; and the report which the royal commissioners made (though not published) touched all points of the unhappy dispute. Again, in 1901, on a suggestion put forward by the colony, Mr Chamberlain summoned Sir Robert Bond, the Newfoundland premier, and a colleague, Sir E. P. Morris, to London, for a new conference on the French shore question, in which Lord Lansdowne, the foreign secretary, participated. Nothing coming of this, the Modus Vivendi Act continued to be passed annually. In 1901 a fresh attempt was made to effect a settlement, but the negotiations were again unsuccessful, as the colony declined to make concessions in regard to the sale of bait unless the French system of bounties on the sale of fish by their citizens were abandoned or at least modified in important
